Guy Who Created The TSA Says It's Failed, And It's Time To Dismantle It

from the say-that-again dept

One of the politicians instrumental in creating the TSA, Rep. John Mica, who wrote the legislation that established the TSA, has apparently decided that the whole thing has been a failure and should be dismantled. He notes that "the whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats."

“It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said. “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.”

As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”

“Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of [shoe-bomber] Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids,” Mica said.

“It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” Mica said.

It cost $1 billion just to train workers, which now number more than 62,000, and “they actually trained more workers than they have on the job,” Mica said.

“The whole thing is a complete fiasco,” Mica said.

There's a lot more at that link. Now, one could (and perhaps should) note that when Mica wrote the legislation, his particular political party was in power, and now it's not. So the cynical voice might say that his words are somewhat politically motivated. And one can (and probably should) ask how it was that Mica didn't expect this kind of result. This is what the government does. It creates agencies that are then "hijacked by bureaucrats." While it's nice to see him realizing this now, it's too bad he didn't see it back then.

Reader Comments

TSA

The options of dismantling security checkpoints in airports and a no-fly list aren't what's in question. Nobody in their right minds would let Joe Schmoe in with a box cutter and a med-deprived personality. Privatizing TSA has been the issue at hand. There are companies that do the exact same work, on less of a power trip, and do it for less. It's no surprise TSA has been a better resource to AmTrak than Biden. Not saying all TSA agents are power hungry and horny people, because I know quite a few well-adjusted ones that treat it like any other job, but there's no reason the illusion of safety should come at the cost of a procedure you feel should have warranted at least a dinner before indulging in.